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I just finished watching the first 26 episodes of AstroBoy on DVD after purchasing a set from HongKong last week for $84 (AUD including postage) so here is some info and a review for anyone thinking about purchasing them, I also converted the eps to DivX 5 so I’ve added some additional info to help anyone wanting to store the eps on their HD like myself for quick access.

Video: 7/10
The quality of the video is excellent and is as about as good as you can get from an interlaced NTSC picture and I would have given it 9/10, however it has a few graphical artifacs that constantly show up in every episode. These aren’t video compression artifacs they are most likely file transfer errors that were not noticed before sending the masters to the DVD pressing plant, the artifacs are annoying but bearable, such artifacs are none the less inexcusable on any DVD.



Audio: 8/10
Audio is wonderful on every disc and every episode, discs two to five have a data rate of 192k the data rate on disc one is 448k which is over kill for a 2.0 mono soundtrack and odd in that disc has six episodes instead of five like the other discs.

Presentation: 9/10
Fantastic, the cover art is great, the box folds out like a long book to reveal four clear trays where the DVD’s sit, behind each clear tray is a picture featuring Astro and other characters, on the reverse side of disc four is disc five, in addition to the box art each disc is printed with an unique picture, disc one features Astro flying over some buildings, disc two has Astro fighting Atlas with the laser swords, disc three has Astro and Uran, disc four has Astro with the Transformation robot, and disc five features Bruton with Astro flying over head.

Menus are well defined, each of the episodes is selectable via a TV screen menu with Astro on the side, and each of the episodes has five chapter stops, (intro, start, middle, next ep trailer & credits) there are also some bonus items on disc two three four and five which I’ll go into more detail in those sections. The main menu however has an annoying flaw after a few seconds it will automatically start the episode that you last clicked on or it might decide to start playing from the first episode, looks like someone stuffed up big time there!



Subtitles: 3/10
The discs all feature Chinese and English subtitles, I guess the Chinese subtitles are fine, I cant say for sure cause I don’t speak Chinese English subtitles are where things start to fall apart, hmm where to start, the English subtitles are terrible it’s almost as if they translated this to Chinese first and then to English, examples from episode one:
Toby is known as Phillip, why I have no idea I always assumed Toby was known as Toby in the Japanese version as well, It’s quite obvious that everyone is calling him Tobio, at one point Phillip calls Jump Phillip as well, who is now known as John, Skunk is Scot, When Toby’s dad “Dr Titan” is arguing with Skunk he says “Bring your stuff and leave” should be “Take your stuff and leave” and the list goes on and on, one of the more amusing ones is that Daddy Walrus is referred to only as “Beard old man” even though he has just a moustache. But I digress, I will highlight a few more in the episode sections and you can see for yourself from the subtitle file that I posted in the DivX section that I will need some assistance before adding these subs to the video files.

Overall: 8/10
Very good set of DVD’s I would have liked a full set of 52 episodes but this will do for now until I can get my hands on a proper progressive R4 PAL release hopefully with optional English and Japanese soundtracks plus English subs (I want it all! I would have liked to have compared this set to the Japanese to see how the two sets differ. I’m surprised at the amazing differences between the English eps and Japanese ones, not only the episodes but also the order they appear in. As a kid I always knew something was missing when I saw the ep with Astro flashing back to a fight with Atlas when he was a kid, when the Internet came along I quickly found out that the English version was missing an ep. What I did not know was that episode one had been chunks taken out of it and replaced with chunks from the missing episode, it also explains a lot and makes me wonder why did they cut it this way for the English version. I other thing I want to mention is the Japanese dialog. Comparing it to the English one is quite a contrast, the voice actors are so much more expressive than their English counterparts, even though the English subs are ****ed to the shithouse you can tell you are missing a lot when you go back and view the English eps.

DivX Stuff
Original plan:
Encode Video to DivX 5
Encode Japanese Audio to MP3 or OGG
Purchase English videos, encode English audio to MP3 or OGG
Rip English subtitles and convert to SubRip format
Store streams in OGG Media File.

New Plan:
Encode Video to DivX 5 (Done!
Encode Japanese Audio to Vorbis (OGG) (Done!
Rip English subtitles and convert to SubRip format (Done!
Fix English subs (working)
Store streams in OGG Media File (to do)

As you can see my original plan fell apart I did not know that there were such big differences between the English and Japanese eps, especially episode one, I only have four of the english eps
to compare to the Japanese ones, “The Birth of AstroBoy” “The Monster of Clarken” “The Runaway Subway Train” and “Uran the Tomboy” only two appear on the DVD set and going by those to eps I can tell that my original plan was going to fail, or be very difficult, I guess one option is to insert silence into the English soundtrack where chunks are missing, I don’t really have the patience for that at the moment though.

Video:
First needed to get rid of the nasty interlacing, I didn’t really want to stuff around to much with this I could have gotten marginally better results by using a different method, however time is the enemy so I just used a “Blend mode” next resize to 480x360 (Lanczos3) & crop black bits,
Next a 2D cleaner (15,3,3), this filter is works its magic on cartoons really well, use it!! And finally a brightness contrast adjustment (+20%, 118%)

I then encoded the eps to DivX 5 with a data rate of 805k, using two passes each ep took about 90min (45min per pass) on an AthlonXP 2200 with 512mb, I wanted to get at least five episodes per CD and each ep came out at 123mb (no audio yet) I did not encode the intro & credits yet as they can just be recycled using a playlist, the trailers I may encode later on. All of the episodes encoded really well they are very compressible and I think the 2D cleaner helped,

Audio:
Using GoldWave I encoded the audio to Vorbis @60kbps mono and each file came out at 9mb or less.
Add this to the video, 132mb, five per disc, 660mb, cool plenty of room left for the intro and credits!

Subtitles:
Grab the first subtitle file from HERE, it is in SubRip format, which is just a text file so you can view it in NotePad, as you can see it is madness, I’ve already done some changes to another copy but I’d be interested to read other peoples thoughts on the original before I add it to the video, I have not even started on the other 25 eps, so if anyone would like to assist me in a more active manner on this project send me a PM. (In addition to the subtitle file for anyone else ripping the subtitles you can get the character matrix from HERE to be used with SubRip)

Random Stuff

Does anyone know if the English episodes were voiced first and then butchered, or were they butchered first and then voiced?
Did anyone ever notice that Astro changes his clothes more often than his human friends?
Episodes 1 & 2, I have to know, why on earth were they cut this way for the English version?

All of the disc are SS-DL discs, and the episodes on each disc take up about 6.4GB which is not really pushing the 9.4GB limit of the format, since each ep weighs in at about 1.2GB they could have fitted at least another two episodes per disc, the extras don’t even take up 10mb on each disc! note to DVD authors: “Utilise the damn space!!!”.

Disc 1 - Episodes 1-6

Episode List:
Ep01 The Birth of Astroboy
Ep02 Astroboy vs. Atlas
Ep03 Robot Circus
Ep04 Save The Classmate
Ep05 Atlas Lives Again
Ep06 Robot Land

Notes:
Ep01 “The Birth of Astroboy” Toby/Tobio is known as Phillip
Ep01 “The Birth of Astroboy” Jump is known as John (and Phillip )
Ep01 “The Birth of Astroboy” Skunk is known as Scot
Ep01 “The Birth of Astroboy” “Sorry” is misspelled “Scrry”
Ep03 “Robot Circus” Dr. Elephan is known as Dr. Charles Yoo
Ep04 “Save The Classmate” Daddy Walrus is known as “Beard old man”
Ep04 “Save The Classmate” Alvin is known as Bush

Disc 2 - Episodes 7-11

Episode List:
Ep07 Frankenstein
Ep08 The Red Cat
Ep09 The Crystal Of The Desert
Ep10 The White Planet
Ep11 The Robot President

Notes:
Ep10 “The White Planet” the White Planet is referred to as the “white bewildered star”

Bonus Stuff:
This disc features three bonus clips:
One English intro with English audio (quality is terrible) and more interesting is a blank intro and blank credits, by that I mean there are is no titling or credits on either clips, both clips are both high quality much better than the actual episodes, and unlike the episodes the two clips are not interlaced they are progressive, one wonders if higher quality masters exist for the actual episodes, hopefully they do and will be used for a English R4 PAL release.




Disc 3 - Episodes 12-16

Episode List:
Ep12 Goliath's Head
Ep13 The Light Ray Robot
Ep14 Uran the Tomboy
Ep15 Robio and Robiet
Ep16 Outer Spaceport R45

Notes:
Ep12 “Goliath's Head” In Japan Goliath is known as Dam Dam, however on this disc he is called Timmy Tim.
Ep14 “Uran the Tomboy” Uran is now Reene
Ep14 “Uran the Tomboy” This episode features special Uran credits with Uran’s theme.
Ep14 “Uran the Tomboy” Two scenes appear in this episode that are not included in the English version one scene has Astro in a kimono and other has Daddy Walrus in a kimono, one wonders why these scenes were taken out, can you spell xenophobia?
Ep15 “Robio and Robiet” Robio & Robiet are refered to as Romeo & Juliet
Ep16 “Outer Spaceport R45” Mars is referred to (like The White Planet) as a bewildered star, I guess it makes sense, if you were a planet orbiting a sun that was very hot you’d be bewildered too

Bonus Stuff:
This disc features a gallery several drawings of Astro and other characters.




Disc 4 - Episodes 17-21

Ep17 Save The Carolina 3
Ep18 The Rainbow Comet
Ep19 The Death Balloon
Ep20 The Transformation Robot
Ep21 The Wreck of The Titan

Bonus Stuff:
This disc features a character gallery with info about each character, including Astro, unfortunately its all in Chinese



One of the funnier moments Astro spoon fed in “The Wreck of The Titan”

Disc 5 - Episodes 22-26

Episode List:
Ep22 The Liar Robot
Ep23 The Girl From Alsoar
Ep24 The Greatest Robot In The World, Part 1
Ep25 The Greatest Robot In The World, Part 2
Ep26 The Robot Vikings

Notes:
Ep24 “The Greatest Robot In The World, Part 1” Bruton (Pruto) is called Bruce
Ep25 “The Greatest Robot In The World, Part 2” Bora is called Pola
Ep25 “The Greatest Robot In The World, Part 2” Astro refers to Bruton/Pruto/Bruce as Pola several times.
Ep25 “The Greatest Robot In The World, Part 2” Bruton vs Hercules = Best Fight.

Bonus Stuff:
This disc has a Astro tech specs page plus screens showing his seven powers unfortunately its all in Chinese again




Other Stuff

Made some an Astro wallpaper from Ep01, I’ll be making some more of these in the coming days/weeks/months you can download the full sized pic by clicking on the image:

Wow that was great!

I have a theory on the combining of the first two episodes for the English dub. When you look at the episode lists for other languages that were translated after the English dub, they have the full 52 episodes.

I reckon they combined the first two episodes to present as a single pilot episode to the TV networks. This way it covers more plot development and they have a better idea if it's going to be a success outside of Japan.

By the way, if you still plan on dubbing the English soundtrack over the Japanese DVD rip, there are a lot of gaps you'll need to watch out for. I see you've already picked up on some of them, but there are chunks of only a second or two cut out here and there throughout the series.

"white bewildered star" even though emblazoned on its side is W-Planet.

I have the DVDs but did not know of any extras. How do I access them?

Aw. It's too bad the subtitles are crap. I hate it when subbers mess up things like names.

I saw a few episodes of these episodes on Kazaa. I have the first 3 volumes on VHS (Paid $80 >_<). I wish I would have gotten your deal.

You must see such crappy subtitles as adding humor to the thing, then you can enjoy it. Do not see an action film and be griping about the impossible escapes, and such. Laugh at the dumbness and enjoy it!

Makes it sound more foreign and exotic too.

Hey GIR, can I ask you some questions on your Divx encoding?

I've started encoding my Astroboy VHS tapes to Divx as they are starting to deteriorate. I've been using Divx 4.12 at a bitrate of 1000, with a keyframe every 25 frames and maximum postprocessing. Deinterlaced with blend mode and the borders cropped. Resolution is scaled to 512x384. For audio I've been using MP3 at 256k. The resulting file size is around 220MB per episode, including opening and closing sequences, so 3 episodes per CD. No episode trailers on the Australian release. The quality is excellent, with no compression artifacts at all. Everything was done with VirtualDub except the video capture.

This is actually the second time I've done this. The first time I didn't know anything about encoding to Divx so the quality was pretty bad. I used the 3.11 codec at 6000 bitrate, no cropping or scaling or deinterlacing.

Things I am wondering:

Is Divx 5 requires for subtitle streams?
Is OGG a superior format for sound? What is the compatibility like?
Which 2D cleaner did you use? I haven't found one that doesn't reduce the quality.
What is the advantage of storing the audio separately?
What programme did you use for DVD ripping? I've tried a couple and ended up with shocking results, mostly with loss of audio/video sync.

Thanks

I have the DVDs but did not know of any extras. How do I access them?

hmm, that’s an interesting question, you should be able to view the credits and intro on disc two with no problems, the other stuff I’m not sure about, I can access them fine but I’m using a PC to view the DVD’s and it looks like someone stuffed up the authoring again on this one.

I reckon they combined the first two episodes to present as a single pilot episode to the TV networks. This way it covers more plot development and they have a better idea if it's going to be a success outside of Japan.

Yes! That makes sense, I still feel cheated though :angry:

By the way, if you still plan on dubbing the English soundtrack over the Japanese DVD rip, there are a lot of gaps you'll need to watch out for. I see you've already picked up on some of them, but there are chunks of only a second or two cut out here and there throughout the series.

I just thought of another plan, I could edit the scenes from the Japanese video to match up with the English eps that would mean two sets of videos until an other option comes along, I think its just around the corner too with Matroska.

Is Divx 5 requires for subtitle streams?

Not at all you can use any video codec with subtitle streams in an OGM file (see reply below)

Is OGG a superior format for sound? What is the compatibility like?

I’m not going to say superior however you can always shave a few KB’s off any file and I could have used MP3 @64k and each file would have come out about a MB larger, I’m not too fussy about which one I use but I figured since I’m using OGM I might as well make good use of it. Anyone can play OGG audio and video files with OGG audio with the relevant software on various operating systems.

Which 2D cleaner did you use? I haven't found one that doesn't reduce the quality.

http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft/2dcleaner.html

What is the advantage of storing the audio separately?

I’m not storing the audio separately, all three streams (video/audio/subs) will be stored in an OGM file which is an alternative to the AVI file format, OGM’s can hold multiple audio streams as opposed to AVI which can only hold two, and multiple subtitle streams as well. OGM is good however I’m still keeping my eye on another alternative format Matroska, which will eventually (apparently) allow me to store the video/audio/subs with the intros & credits recycled properly, also it will be able to deal with the edits in the Jap and Eng versions with built in chaptering, that way I’ll be able to keep the two different versions in the same file and no extra space will be needed.

OGM files can be created using the latest VirtualDubMod: http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/
And played back using the Direct Show Filter (Windows): http://tobias.everwicked.com/oggds.htm

What programme did you use for DVD ripping? I've tried a couple and ended up with shocking results, mostly with loss of audio/video sync.

I used DVD Decrypter 3.1.6.0, I demuxed the AC3 audio separately then trimmed and converted it to WAV in HeadAC3he then to OGG in GoldWave (could have used HeadAC3he but it was not cooperating this week)
The VOB’s were processed using the latest VirtualDubMod, syncing them is not to much trouble you just have to trim a bit here and there from the audio.

hmm, that’s an interesting question, you should be able to view the credits and intro on disc two with no problems, the other stuff I’m not sure about, I can access them fine but I’m using a PC to view the DVD’s and it looks like someone stuffed up the authoring again on this one.

Referring to , On my PC, the only item on there that come up as a link (white gloved pointing hand) is the very top "1". On some discs there is a star, but that does nothing. You say the discs can hold > 9 giggly giga bytes? My hardware, the DVD drive only says "up to 4.7 giga bytes". On its specifications list, it says single layer. I will try on my premium JVC, but will not be able to capture frames!
:angry:

I reckon they combined the first two episodes to present as a single pilot episode to the TV networks. This way it covers more plot development and they have a better idea if it's going to be a success outside of Japan.

See my review of the first episode. To which I must add, that as I was searching for stuff about Fred Ladd, who gave us the humorous names in the English dubs, I found something about the topic of death. Apparently, outside Japan, death is very unpopular in children's TV. Thus the dub goes from the scene of the auto wreck, to the labortory where Dr. Tenma/Boynton/whatever the subtitles call him (and I ought to know, 'cause I just posted a line by Guiss speaking of him), is bringing Atom to life. No last words from a dying boy for the English speaking viewers, but we already knew that. For just as NBC pressured Osamu to make Jungle King Leo (Kimba the While Lion) cease aging while still a cute little cub, rather than have him grow up and die, as Osamu intended, Tobio's death would be a no-no for the same reason. But then, we do not even see Atlas as a kid except as he remembers his first encounter with Atom, if even that. We do not know why the ship was endangered by the iceberg. We are left to blame the Captain for incompetence. :angry: